Abstract : The First World War was a period of extraordinarily rapid technological development. Military technology had changed dramatically in the decades before World War I, but even the most perceptive pre-war military thinkers of 1914 were unable to predict the pace of wartime technical development. The militaries of World War I had to adapt to the emergence of the airplane, motor vehicle, tank and poison gas as major new weapons. Commanders, general staffs and war departments had to try to master the variety of new technology and adapt technology to operations.